The relations of the practical form with the other forms of the spirit having been examined, it is now necessary to re-enter, so to speak, the interior of the volitional activity, and enclose ourselves within it, that we may study its mode of development, its rhythm, its dialectic. We shall no longer ask, therefore, whether the practical activity precede or follow knowledge, or exactly what knowledge it follows and what it precedes, what the volition is in relation to events, what the practical concept or judgment, and the like. But we shall ask what are good and evil, the passions and the forces that dominate them, desires and aspirations; and in the first place (this being the problem that opens the series and gives the key for the solution of the others) what are the freedom and necessity of the volitional act.
This problem of freedom and necessity (that is to say, whether the will be free or determined) has seemed to be and is, from a certain point of view, most weighty and complicated, and we shall soon see why this is so. But at this point, owing to the premises that we have already laid down in our preceding treatises, and also in the part of the present treatise that has already been developed, it will be convenient to solve it with relative expedition.
Freedom of willing and freedom of action: criticism of such distinction.
First of all, we have been able to eliminate the distinction that is wont to be made between freedom of willing and freedom of action, with the duplicity of the problem thus entailed. Indeed we know that volition and action coincide, and that it is impossible to conceive either a volition which is not at the same time action, or an action which is not at the same time volition, and that in consequence there cannot be freedom of willing on the one hand and freedom of action on the other. All the instances of the one that are brought forward can be reduced to the other, provided that the word "freedom" be not used in an improper and metaphorical manner. For example, a paralytic (they say) wills to get up and run; his spirit is free, but his action is restrained; he has freedom of willing, but not of action. But in reality the paralytic does not seriously will to get up and run; that is, he does not really will anything at all. Were he really and seriously to will, that might happen to him which happened to a paralytic gentleman in the Neapolitan revolt of 1547. This gentleman had himself carried into the square on the arms of his servants, but he was found, after the tumult, to the great astonishment of all, on the top of the campanile of San Lorenzo, whither he had climbed with his own legs; such had been his terror and such his will to be saved.[1] As a rule, on the other hand, the paralytic does not will, because he knows that he cannot; at the most, he would wish or desire to find himself in different conditions to those in which he finds himself, in order that he may be able to will otherwise than he does now, which is to remain quiet. This confirms the identity of volition and action, and proves that the two supposed freedoms are one only. Thus, he who is threatened and yields to the threat declares that he is deprived of freedom of action, but that this is not exact is already affirmed in the formula: coacti tamen volunt. Enforced actions not only do not exist, but are not even conceivable. The demand for greater freedom of action, such as new political liberties, is nothing but the demand for certain new conditions of fact for future volitions and actions. But it is a question of more or less, since, as we know, no countenance of imminent tyrant can extinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler, be he ever so strong and violent, can prevent a rebellion, or, when all else fails, a fine death that affirms externally the freedom within. "The will that wills not cannot be subdued."[2]
The volitional act: both free and necessary.
The question that we have here to treat is, then, single, and concerns only the will, which, as such, includes in itself action. In replying, however, we cannot accept the dilemma, that the volitional act must be free or determined, and cling to one of the two horns: we must on the contrary deny the form of the question itself and say that the volitional act is at once free and determined.
Volition, in fact, as has been seen, does not arise in the void, but in a definite situation, in unchangeable historical conditions, in relation to an event, which, if it be, is necessary. The volition corresponds to that situation and it is impossible to separate it: when the situation changes, the volition changes; as the situation, so the volition. This amounts to saying, that it is necessitated or always conditioned by a situation, and precisely by that situation in which it arises.
But this also means that the volition is free. Because if the actual situation be its condition, the volition is not the condition, but the conditioned, for it does not remain fixed in the actual situation, nor repeats and makes a duplicate of it, which would be superfluous and therefore impossible in the effective development of the real, which does not allow of superfluity. The volition produces something different, that is, something new, something that did not exist previously and that now comes into existence: it is initiative, creation, and therefore act of freedom. Were this not so, volition would not be volition, and reality would not change, would not become, would not grow upon itself.
And since without necessity there cannot be liberty, because without an actual situation there cannot be volition, so without liberty there cannot be necessity, the actual situations are not formed, which are always new and always necessary in respect to the new volitions. Actual situations are events, and events are the result of the concourse of individual volitions. The two terms cannot be separated, for if one be removed, so is the other; but neither can they be looked upon as identical or synonymous. They are the two moments of the volitional act, distinct and united, which act is the unity of both, and therefore, as was said, is at once free and determined.